Dooley Online

Social media meets Dunbar's corrollary

In Social media, meet Achilles and The Trouble with Twitter, Dunbar's corrollary is raised as a potential downfall of the current exponential growth in social media.

Dunbar's corrollary essentially states that a person can only maintain a certain number of stable social relationships. Most often that number is cited as 150.

The question is ... is twitter (or other social media) perceived by our brains to be many relationships or one (combining many into one)?

In other words, when we go to twitter do we recognize each relationship as unique or do we interpret the collective tweets we receive as one voice with many different viewpoints?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this ...

Twitter: It's not about me - tips, tools, howto's and a personal statement

Twitter (Plurk, Friendfeed, etc.) is not about me, it's about you.

If you are following me on twitter, you have decided I am worth listening to and/or having a conversation with.

Twitter is a place of real conversations in real time.

I believe twitter reflects what the Internet is meant to be.

I believe twitter is a mashup of real life in the online space and many of the other social media apps are information placeholders there to support and feed conversations on twitter.

I'm passionate about this because I've just spent this past week looking back over the fiscal year and analyzing what I've been doing in the social media space. If you want to know all the spaces I've been working in, visit http://www.dooleyonline.net/ for a full list of the different online accounts -- both personal and organizational.

Twitter statistics

Here are some of the statistics I gather on those who follow me on twitter:

• Twitter account name

• Real name. Sometimes this is not provided directly but you might find it through a website. Also, many people reuse a handle (mine is lldoolj2) in several online applications. Google their handle and you may find their real name and links to additional online spaces -- youtube, linkedin, facebook, blogs, digg, delicious, etc.

• Location (city, state, country). Note that with the adoption of the iPhone, many twitterers are starting to identify themselves by iPhone geotags. I do not have an iPhone (yet) and so haven't translated these coordinates yet.

• Website URL. Visit the websites given. This is part of the conversation followers want to have with you. If the information is relevant, consider subscribing to their RSS feeds.

• Date and time of follow (from emails sent from twitter.com).

• Avatars. How many times have website teams been tool to create personas for their websites so they can remember who their target audience is. Twitter provides real personas who are interested in you and what you have to say.

All of this information can be used to provide a snapshot of the people you are engaged with on a daily basis. I've analyzed this information in a number of ways and each time I learn something new and interesting about this twitter community.

Twitter etiquette

• I manage two twitter accounts - a personal one and an organizational one. I post different things on each. That's okay. Just don't get them confused and post a very personal thing on the corporate twitter account.

• You are what you post. If your information is helpful and community-building, that is how you will be perceived. Remember who you are when you post and your personal branding will remain intact.

• Post information of interest to your twitter community. They need to know you are listening to them.

• Some run their RSS feeds through their twitter accounts. I actually follow a few organizations that do this. The problem is that often the tweet limit of 140 characters is not enough. While the general message comes through, it is sometimes frustrating that the thought is not completed in the tweet.

• Though not required, some people direct message new followers, thanking them for following and letting them know if they have chosen to follow back.

• You don't always have to tweet about stuff that's on your site. Not only is it not about you, it's not what you know it is what you share. Share good stuff -- and it doesn't always have to be your original material. Highlight useful information from others.
  

• If you retweet a message sent to you (or a link to someone else's content), give credit where it's due. This not only shows that you are an honest tweeter, it lets the person who provided the content in the first place know that you are listening.

• #hashtags are good to help organize information. But you can also get some good information by just using http://search.twitter.com.

• Track your statistics in a spreadsheet. Follows, followers, clickthroughs on links. My favorite tools - Twitter itself, http://twittercounter.com and http://tweetburner.com.

Building your twitter community

• As I visit other social media sites and connect with others, I look to see if they have twitter accounts.

• http://www.twellow.com is a yellow pages for twitter. Make sure you are listed as you search for others in your interest category.

• Occasionally someone posts a list of their favorite twitter accounts. Check out these lists for new follow opportunities. If you feel you should be on the list, ask to be added.

• When I connect with someone on twitter, I'll look at who they are following and who is following them.

What additional suggestions, or links, can you provide?

Mamma Mia! When Brands Cut Against the Grain

This weekend my husband and I walked down to the local movie theatre and saw three movies:

• Mongol: About the rise of Genghis Khan. Part of anticipated trilogy. Worth seeing.
  
  

• Bottle Shock: About events surrounding the first wine tasting contest in the 1970s between French and Napa Valley wines. A California wine won.
  
  

• Mamma Mia: A light musical fair based on Abba music with an all star cast. High school musical for baby boomers.
  
  

Mongol sits alone (but I'm encouraging people to see it).

The other two movies made me think about personal branding.

Two examples:

• In BottleShock, Alan Rickman portrays his character as a snobby brit - a role he plays well. The first time my husband and I saw Rickman was in a 1985 Shakespeare production in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was a standout player in a roll that oozed sarcasm - a close relative of snobbery. Since that time, he has branded himself as quick wit that wields sarcasm and snobbery like a samurai wields a sword. For Rickman, it is a brand that works and we love him for it.

• In Mamma Mia, big name stars such as Meryl Streep, Stellan Skarsgård, Colin Firth, Christine Baranski and Pierce Brosnan dance, sing and just seem to have a heck of a lot of fun. Meryl has a wide range of performance abilities, so she fit well into her role. Stellan Skarsgard's role seemed perfectly suited to his nature. Colin Firth hasn't really developed a niche style of acting, so his role worked okay for him. Christine Baranski was just as wild and crazy as we've come to expect from her suite of characters.
  
  And then there was Pierce Brosnan. I remember Pierce Brosnan when he was Remington Steele -- a James Bond wannabe who wasn't. In a way, this performance seemed to go back in a reverse sort of way to his Remington Steele roots. Now that Remington Steele has become James Bond, it seemed like James Bond was now trying to become Remington Steele (or, in this case, Sam Carmichael).
  
  When Pierce Brosnan belted (and I mean belted) out "SOS", you could hear gentle laughter in the movie audience. James Bond singing Abba? And with a closeup!
  
  In my mind's eye I saw producers Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson smile as the Mamma Mia casting director suggested Pierce Brosnan for the role. And I can also hear Tom Hanks saying to the audience, "Look, folks, it's only a movie. And a musical at that. It's supposed to be fun! Enjoy it!"
  
  Okay, so it seems like Pierce Brosnan -- for most of the movie-going audience -- was perceived as playing against his personal brand. It just didn't work ... initially.
  
  But once we got over the shock of Pierce singing Abba, comments like "he's a good sport" and "he could sing okay" and "he wasn't that bad" filled the air.
  
  People really like Pierce Brosnan and were willing to support him.
  
  So, I guess I've come to the conclusion that playing against personal brand is okay -- as long the brand is liked. If Pierce Brosnan's brand wasn't strong and positive to begin with, reactions probably would have been much different (and less positive).
  
  Lesson learned: Build a strong and likeable personal brand for those times when you may have to perform against brand (and need support from others).

Randy Pausch: Thanks for the Legacy

I've been holding on to this post for a few weeks. It is very sad to lose Randy Pausch, but we are so glad that he left such a wonderful legacy for his family, his friends, and the world.

I was late in watching his last lecture video online - I eventually did and here are some of the key online resources and videos that I bookmarked.

• CMU professor gives his last lesson on life (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 19, 2007)
  
  "If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you."

• Randy Pausch's Last Lecture (Carnegie Mellow University). With equal parts humor and heart, Carnegie Mellon professor and alumnus Randy Pausch delivered a one-of-a-kind last lecture that moved an overflow crowd at the university — and went on to move audiences around the globe.

• Randy Pausch, noted CMU prof, succumbs to cancer (Pittsburgh Post Gazette, July 25, 2008). The family requests that donations on his behalf be directed to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, 2141 Rosecrans Ave., Suite 7000, El Segundo, Calif. 90245, or to Carnegie Mellon's Randy Pausch Memorial Fund, which primarily supports the university's continued work on the Alice project.

• The Legacy of Randy Pausch and His Lecture Videos (Dr. Gabriel Robins)

• Randy Pausch's website. Many links to other videos of Randy Pausch. Highlights his efforts to raise awareness about pancreatic cancer.

Finally, what made me finish this post was tacanderson's recent tweet about wordle.net - a tag cloud generator that is more art that function, at least at this point. After playing a bit with this tool myself, I added the RSS feed to my Google Reader. Today, Thesalin posted two word clouds on Randy Pausch - the thumbnails of word clouds are posted below. Somehow, I think Randy would appreciate these:

Randy Pausch	Randy Pausch Life Lessons

China and the Internet: Trends and Stories

Richard McManus (ReadWriteWeb) highlights the Online China Overview piece first posted as the TrendsSpotting Handbook Of Online China. I've embedded the slides below.

Definitely worth a look:

Handbook of Online China

View SlideShare presentation (tags: web trend trends powerpoint olympics)

I encourage you to read TrendsSpotting's summary analysis.

Other interesting posts about China:

• An Inside Look At Beijing During The Olympics, Rohit Bhargava (Influential Marketing Blog). Rohit is in China and passes on the lessons learned to date about getting around China and the Olympics.

• Olympic photos (Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang). Breathtaking photos with links to additional resources including links to the best of Jeremiah's best photos of China to raise awareness about the earthquake disaster earlier this year.

• #080808 Twitter Campaign For Beijing Olympics (ReadWriteWeb). At 8.08am on Friday 8th August 2008 in Beijing some Chinese Web fans have launched a campaign to celebrate and support the opening of the Beijing Olympics, using Twitter.

• China's first blogger Isaac Mao: it was just like a fairy story (The Guardian). Isaac Mao, who wrote China's first blog six years ago, talks about his battle with the 'Great Firewall' and the impact blogging has had on the country's culture.

Furnished is to Unfurnished as Proprietary is to OpenSource?

As I was riding the metro into work today, I was thinking about the many projects I am working on this week.

I also thought about the tools I am working with and which have proven to be barriers to productivity rather than helps:

• Proprietary CMS software: The house, fully furnished. The furniture is nailed down. The furniture is nice and fully functional in terms of what you need. You can bring in some new decorative items such as a vase or book, but you can't easily move the furniture around. And matching pieces are expensive.

• Open source CMS: My experience is with Drupal (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP). You get the house for a reasonable price and you get the furniture -- LOTS of furniture. Sometimes too much furniture. You will definitely need to try a variety of pieces until you find those pieces that best reflect your taste. And you may need to have some furniture custom-made. But that's okay. 'Cause you can share your furniture designs with other people eager to see what neat design ideas you've come up with.

• Software to build-your-own. My experience is with ColdFusion/SQLServer/Windows. You get the house for a one-time hefty fee. But you have ultimate flexibility to paint the walls whatever color you want and to create all your own furnishings. But it takes time, keen knowledge of your environment and inhabitants of your space, and clever use of your existing resources.